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Thursday, March 20, 2008

The Disinformation And Deception of Church Growth Plans

Is Your Church Going Purpose Driven?

The Southwest Radio Ministries has a handy little Brochure that you can download for free to help you make a reasonable assessment. You might need it if you want to know the answer. If your church leaders are attempting that kind of change, you cannot find out by asking them; It’s the wrong question to ask. Here’s why.

Your pastoral staff or the change agents in your church will never accomplish their agenda by standing up in front of the congregation and boldly declaring, “This is what we want to do and this is how we are going to do it.” In their training materials, Church Transitions by Dan Southerland, an associate of Saddleback Church, instructs how to pull this off successfully. Initially, a small clique of church staff, possibly (and preferably but not necessarily) including the pastor or a new pastor, plans the change without telling the rest of the church membership. The clique is trained to initiate the change in eight published steps. The church membership is not to be informed of the transition until the fourth step. This means the church membership is not told until it is too late to make a difference.

Did you see that?

Those instructions are chilling.

In order to accomplish their objective, they must foist it on unsuspecting congregations by stealth. And because they believe their agenda is right, or godly, or noble, or good, they have no problem employing devious tactics because “the end justifies the means.”

Now, back to the question; when asked, “Are we changing to a Purpose Driven, or seeker sensitive, church model?” most change agents can unflinchingly look you squarely in the eyeballs and flat out deny the truth because they are convinced that, technically, what they are telling you is not a lie. Here’s how.

“Purpose Driven” is Rick Warren’s plan, "Seeker Sensitive" refers to Bill Hybels' plan. These are trademark plans among several plans that are all broadly categorized as the "Church Growth Movement" or "Chruch Marketing." Most change agents employ a plan for church growth or vision that is a variation or compilation of one or more plans that they have "customized" for their own use. So, if asked, they can, technically, be "truthy" in their deception. The real question to ask is this, “Do we have a vision for church growth and a developed marketing or business strategy to help us achieve that goal?”

And even if you carefully phrase the question, they will still tap dance around it or give you a bunch of "truthy" non-answers but it will be much more difficult. You will need to become educated on the subject, listen carefully for the buzzwords, and be able to identify the symptoms.

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Most people don’t care who I am or what I do. For the most part, people really only care about what others think. The best way to know me is to know what I think. What I think is influenced by my conservative, fundamentalist, Christian world-view.
This blog is an expression of my ideas and opinions that derive from that world-view and the publication of my ideas is protected by the First Amendment. It is intentionally provocative, probably annoying, and often wrapped in satirical and sometimes sarcastic wit.
Many people will pretend that they don’t care about what I think but deep down inside, I know they really do! They want to know if my opinions agree with theirs. If so, they will like me. If not, they should just ignore me and go away but they probably won’t. They will creep around on my blog just to see what kind of things they can find about which to be outraged and critical, not on merit or substance, but on my insensitive humor or politically incorrect audacity. They may attack me with anonymous comments or hate mail. But that's OK. I will just continue laffing at things I find absurd.

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MARRIAGE

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

And Adam said:

“This is now bone of my bonesAnd flesh of my flesh;She shall be called Woman,Because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:18, 21, 23-24

Jesus said, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Matthew 19:4-6

Marriage was created and defined by God and confirmed by Jesus. End of Argument.

"I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love."

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